Genesis Discussion with Michael Healy

Genesis Discussion - with Ian MacKinnell · with Michael Healy

Q

What if Genesis isn't scientifically accurate?
https://www.quora.com/What-if-Genesis-isnt-scientifically-accurate/answer/Michael-Healy-252

Michael Healy

M.A. in Philosophy & Theology, Franciscan University of Steubenville (Graduated 2008)

3.II.2023

Why should it be?

What if microbiology isn't psychologically accurate? What if economics isn't chemically accurate? Do you see you stupid the original question sounds when you shift your point of view a little?

Point is, religious texts were never intended to teach science. They teach other lessons, and often use the more vivid and memorable language of myth and legend to convey those lessons rather than the (to most people) dry and boring language of technical precision and academic journals.

In fact, the more people attack Genesis for supposed scientific inaccuracies, the less I respect those people.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

3.II.2023

“What if microbiology isn't psychologically accurate?”

I wonder if there is such a thing as psychologically accurate - is astrology accurate?

More to the point, in microbiology and psychology, supposing both were able to be accurate, you would have an example of non-overlapping magisteria.

Micribiology and chemistry certainly both are able to be accurate, and their magisteria do overlap. Some simple chemical reactions are part of the biological processes.

“Point is, religious texts were never intended to teach science.”

Oh, wait … what about teaching against scientific errors that can reach damnable conclusions?

Agassiz, an old earth creationist, did not believe Black men descended from Adam. It has had a few very unsavoury consequences, along evolutionists teaching multiple humanisation processes (as Chinese do). The Bible saying we all descend from Adam and Eve are against both of these errors and therefore against the thing which is most properly called “racism” (i e when it is not just xenophobia with the other ethnicity very easy to target). Eugenics.

Michael Healy

4.II.2023

Thank you for your thoughtful reflections. I would not go so far as to say that science and religion are “non-overlapping magisteria.” I do think there is some overlap and that cross-disciplinary studies can be very fruitful. However, I also do not think that either science or religion can completely overrule the other. Even given some degree of overlap, my basic point remains that science and religion have distinct methods and distinct concerns and one does not trump the other.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

4.II.2023

Well, is there any legitimate part of science that clearly opposes anything in Genesis?

Michael Healy

4.II.2023

I would say, no. The early chapters of Genesis convey truth, but through the language of myth and legend. Think of it this way: From God’s perspective, teaching people the exact, technical details of the Big Bang, the expansion of the Universe, the formation of the Earth, and the evolution of life would have gotten in the way of the lessons he wanted to teach. So, he used several mythical stories familiar to his audience, but with twist that made them suitable to convey the lessons he most wanted to teach at that time. “The right lesson at the wrong time is the wrong lesson,” as the saying goes, and teaching 19th and 20th century sciences to people who lived 3,000 years ago would have been foolish. Not because they were any less intelligent than we are, but because some lessons of their very nature cannot be taught until the proper foundation has been laid.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

4.II.2023

Your answer breaks down on so many points.

"through the language of myth and legend."

What exactly does that mean, to you?

"Think of it this way: From God’s perspective, teaching people the exact, technical details of the Big Bang, the expansion of the Universe, the formation of the Earth, and the evolution of life would have gotten in the way of the lessons he wanted to teach."

That is beside the point. Those things, for the most Old Earthers who believed that kind of natural chronology a 100 years ago, would have been before the creation of Adam and Eve.

We were speaking of historic transmission of historic facts. Historic = observed by people.

"So, he used several mythical stories familiar to his audience, but with twist that made them suitable to convey the lessons he most wanted to teach at that time."

Genealogies are "mythical stories with a twist"?

And "mythical stories familiar to His audience" - at what Revelation?

And from when would Tower of Babel have been familiar to them?

"teaching 19th and 20th century sciences to people who lived 3,000 years ago would have been foolish."

3000 years ago, that's King David's time. You are saying people back then were so immature they could not have been trusted with a roughly speaking correct history?

Which ties in with my first question - to me, pagan myths are roughly speaking correct history, most of the time. Plus some distortions worked by Satan's cunning, but basically.

"some lessons of their very nature cannot be taught until the proper foundation has been laid."

What exact foundation is needed before you can state there weren't just 3434 years between the creation of Adam and the birth of Abraham?

If Enoch was seventh from Adam, how could there be a faithful preservation of his prophecy from his day to the time of St. Jude?

On Jude 1:14 Challoner comments : [14] "Prophesied": This prophecy was either known by tradition, or from some book that is since lost.

In the latter case, Enoch, seventh from Adam, was not in a pre-literary society. In the former case, the kind of chronology you suggest is too much for a faithful preservation of the prophecy, exactly as with Genesis 3:15, God's prophecy about Jesus and Mary.

Michael Healy

4.II.2023

Let me respond with an example. No one would ever attempt to teach calculus to someone who had no knowledge of basic arithmetic. In the same way, it would be a mistake to teach modern science to people who lived thousands of years ago. When you criticize the Bible on the basis that it does not agree with modern science, you are making a mistake similar to that of attempting to teach calculus to someone with no training in basic arithmetic.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

4.II.2023

You forgot my question.

It was about why the history would be inaccurate.

Michael Healy

4.II.2023

As for the genealogies, there is enough information in the Bible itself to show us that Biblical genealogies were not meant to be exhaustive lists but rather (a) representative samples and (b) bearers of numerological symbolism.

Anyway, sorry to have to cut this discussion short, but I’ve got homework assignments to grade.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

4.II.2023

No, there aren’t.

The genealogy of St. Matthew ritually leaves out four generations, that’s very different from leaving out most generations.

And numerological symbolism - how much is there in the genealogies anyway?

That of St. Matthew yes, but the 14 in three goes is reached by:

• the ritual omission of 4 impure generations
• one time stringing two fourteens together with an overlap and one time without.

Besides, St. Matthew goes out of his way to mention the symbolism, so it’s not fair to assume such an intention is present even without such mentions.

You are free to come back tomorrow if you like … and if you do, don’t forget that wrong genealogies also imply worse situation for historic transmission of for instance Genesis 3. And that Genesis seems to be, apart from the six days account, men telling what they saw happen, and participated in, not God speaking to any prophet by dictation.